Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Lines of Enquiry

the lines of enquiry:

be it as it may that the present collection of knowledge after centuries of thought seems a lot, it is still continuing, for there are areas to explore yet, so far mysterious still to us, and truths undiscovered, hopefully soon reached. originally, as human beings, with the physical aspect of life being of overarching importance, we wondered about our bodies, their stable health and condition. the world to be seen around us excited an interest in our surroundings. we thought about other people. and so the various disciplines and subjects began, biology, geography, languages, history.

as an abstract subject, arithmetic was certainly practical, division a must when goods were to be fairly distributed amongst a group. interest in shapes led to geometry, and forming equations for unknowns led to algebra, and observing the algebraic function in the form of a graph, and its gradient, led to calculus.

once set upon this path, arriving at what we know today seems inevitable, the inception being the original questions in the mind of humanity and the urgent need to find answers to them. the precarious nature of the first few days of time rather influenced the way things are, indeed the impact of the start of time and the early years cannot be denied. even if memories were hazy, examining dominant themes in modern culture still provides clues as to the state of reality in the beginning. of course it begs the question, how much have things changed? if the answer is not much, then probably for all "what a relief". all theories of creation or evolution cannot avoid the singularity of the question, "what was i or what was i doing at the beginning of time?" evolution theories require there to be much capacity for change. creation theories require there to be much power behind will. here are some questions. "do people really change?" "is anyone that powerful?" "is the tree eternal?" "am i stuck being me in all time?"

so, propelled by an early intention to acquire knowledge, we were thrust along lines of enquiry that marked a trail of expansion into often highly arcane and abstract constructs. what was once pressing, in that the demand for knowledge was real, became a steady almost involuntary push into the frontiers of thought. to dismiss anyone's academic work as irrelevant at best, untrue to the original thinking agenda, is a cruel turn. as always all are still interested in social relations. isolation is a hazardous thing. for the fevered mind, busy thinking, the degree of truth in one's thoughts is not always plain, the initial steps into the unknown are hopefully correct. it is easy to be crazy. let's say anyone can think of all the combinations of possibilities. how do we know what is true? if we can test it, how do we test it? for those who have suffered from false beliefs and realized such, have experienced a kind of mental agony that scars the soul.

one subject that has always fascinated us is motion. what is it? what is a wave? how does one influence another? it is true like breeds like, like a universal game of tag, it is this that explains the wave. however, this is only one way that one influences one's neighbour. the wave is not the only form of motion. a wave is like a cue ball hitting a snooker ball straight so that the ball rolls on in the same direction as the cue ball did, it carries on the same. of course, there are other possibilities of hitting the cue ball in snooker or pool, such as the angle shot where the other ball rolls off in another direction, just as there are other types of motion beyond the wave. the signal is not carried, it is distorted or something completely different is the effect on what is nearby.

when we talk, we pass on what others have told us. gossip is contagious, just like a wave. where does the chain stop? naturally, we introduce our own stories, and conversation forms its own pleasing pattern of things the same and those different. of course, the easiest way to arrive at the truth is to closely observe the natural world, rather than an almost random thought process or heuristic of trying to find the remaining pieces of the puzzle of the universe that fit.